July
24, 1918

12th letter

Dear Ma:-

The last couple of days have been quite full, so I am afraid I will
not be able to put it all in one letter. I think I told you that the censors only permit
four pages of 20 lines each in a letter, and if they catch you writing too often to one
person, they will send one letter through and hold up the rest until they are good and
ready.

I got a car two days ago from one of the boys who is on leave for
two weeks. It is about the best car in the section so I hope I will be able to keep it,
but I suppose I will have to give it up.

Last night we had an air raid that sort of reminded me of France in
all but one or two details. They tried to bomb a town quite near us and for about four
hours the Italian planes and the Austrians were up. The sky was full of shrapnel from the
anti-aircraft guns, that looked like giant firefly when it exploded. A great many search
light were playing about the sky and at several places, they were sending up colored
signal rockets.

As a climax they brought down one of the Austrian planes only about
a mile from the house here. He flew right over us with an Italian shooting at him. The
pilot was hit and forced to land. Then the observer and pilot defended the machine with
revolvers for a few moments.

When some of the boys went down to take the pilot to a hospital,
the observer, on top of all the trouble he had made with his revolver, tried to get snotty
with one of the boys. More than that, he got away with it and the Italian even tried to
stand up for him a bit when this boy told him where to get off in English. I don't think
that the French or especially the English would have stood for it. And more, if any German
aviator brought down in France tried to defend his machine, I think he would most likely
get shot while he was defending it. The whole thing down here seems to be a regular toy
war compared to France.

We have more trouble with flies and mosquitoes than anything else.
They certainly are thick and nothing drives them away.

I'm feeling 0.K., but would like some mail. All the others that
came over with us have had it, but none for me yet. We are awfully out off from the world,
too, and don't get hardly any news of the western front and none about the states.